HSK 2 Time & dates
… 的时候
When… with …的时候
Structure (action/state) + 的时候
…的时候 (de shíhou) means "when / at the time of…" and goes AFTER what it places in time: 我吃饭的时候不看手机 = "when I eat, I don’t look at my phone". Unlike English, the "when" sits at the end of the block, not the start. It works for actions and for life stages (小的时候 = "as a child").
Examples
- 我吃饭的时候不看手机。
When I eat, I don’t look at my phone.
- 小的时候我住在北京。
As a child I lived in Beijing.
- 下雨的时候我在家。
When it rains, I’m at home.
Levels are indicative: they follow the standard Chinese Grammar Wiki (AllSet Learning) progression, not an official HSK 3.0 mapping. We never assign levels by eye.